Insets (left to right): Jessie Waldroup and Desirae Uzunboylu (Facebook). Background: The Pasco County Sheriff's Office in Land O' Lakes, Fla. (Google Maps).
A Florida couple posted bond after police said their infant daughter had a blood alcohol content that could have killed her.
Jessie Waldroup, 36, and Desirae Uzunboylu, 27, were arrested on Sept. 17 and charged with child neglect after police said their 6-month-old daughter nearly died of alcohol poisoning. According to an affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, the couple's 7-year-old son found his baby sister unresponsive when he got home from school on Sept. 8. The little girl was in her playpen in her bedroom while Waldroup and Uzunboylu were asleep in the living room.
Police said the boy told them his baby sister was "not acting right or responding."
According to the affidavit, the little girl was taken to a children's trauma hospital, where medical staff determined that her blood alcohol content was 0.383. When police spoke to Waldroup and Uzunboylu, they both denied using alcohol or drugs and "had no idea" how the baby had alcohol in her system.
Uzunboylu later told police that she, Waldroup, and her children went to the beach the previous day with other members of the family. One of those other family members admitted to filling a water bottle with vodka and bringing it with him to the beach. Both Waldroup and Uzunboylu told police that it was possible that Waldroup "used that water bottle, containing vodka, to make a bottle" for the baby.
The 7-year-old boy told police that he saw Waldroup give the baby a bottle while they were at the beach. Police spoke to the family member who filled the water bottle with vodka, and he confirmed that he did that, closed the bottle, and placed it in his own backpack. After spending an hour in the water at the beach, he returned to his backpack to find the water bottle gone.
Police located the bottle that Waldroup and Uzunboylu used to feed the baby, and they wrote in the affidavit that there was a "strong smell of an alcoholic beverage emitting from it."
Medical staff told police they found bruises on the baby that were "highly suspicious for non-accidental trauma." According to the affidavit, the medical staff said that if the baby's brother had not found her and called 911, the baby likely would have died.
Waldroup and Uzunboylu were both charged with child neglect. They posted bond and were released from the Pasco County Jail. Their next court dates were not immediately available.